I’ve always hated haircuts. In high school and college, when I was going for “a look,” my hair was the easiest part of the look to get right, and the hardest to hide when it looked wrong. When I found a stylist I liked, I was loyal to him, the way Mark Davis is loyal to his dude. Even now that I’m a dried-up old husk…

When I was 11, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Playing with animals all day seemed like a fun gig. Around this time, Billy Joel released the pop-rap song, “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” In it, Mr. Joel barks through a litany of horrible events that occurred in the 20th Century, at one point rhyming “foreign debts” and …

In the game of adulting, a herd accompanies you past the milestones. When you’re young, everyone you know is graduating college, landing a first job, getting married, having kids. As you approach middle age, the milestones become less celebratory. Everyone you know is loosening their belt, losing their hair, losing…

On Saturdays, I play pick-up soccer with a regular group of guys. We use any open field we can find. That got harder early in the fall, when the youth soccer leagues began their seasons. Once we saw those kids marching toward us wearing matching uniforms, flanked by coaches carrying thick playbooks, we made way. Those…

Like the proper way to hang a roll of toilet paper, the location of a sleeping child is a reliable internet fight starter. The experts are tired of squabbling. NPR reported last year that the latest guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics boil down to: We don’t think kids should sleep with adults, but we…

The paradox of parenting is that you can perform all the functions and still feel like an imposter. Changing diapers, playing peekaboo, giving piggyback rides—it can all seem like play acting. Then comes the moment when you become a real dad. One day, you’ll be hanging out with your kid, open your mouth and produce a…

People are meant to move. We’ve been doing it for tens of thousands of years. Chasing mammoths across the tundra, chasing shiny pebbles down frigid mountain streams, chasing native people out of their homelands. Somewhere in all that traveling we learned to grow plants in rows and gather cattle into groups and squint…

You’re pooping right now, reading this. Probably constipated. Or you’re in the back of an Uber, stuck in traffic. You’re half-listening to a conference call. You’re watching the refs watch a replay, watching our democracy crumble, watching the subway doors close in some dude’s face. All the while, time is marching on.…

America, our possessions are ruining us. Even as you read these words, container ships are churning through the waters of the Pacific, carrying the candle holders and tea strainers and duvet covers and coffee tables that will appear in front of you in Target, flooding your brain with dopamine, rewarding your anxious…

There’s an idea that parallel universes exist simultaneously, and every possible outcome of every event in history is happening within them. If this is right, then somewhere in time and space, Dez Bryant made that catch, baby Donald Trump died of SIDS, 9/11 wasn’t an inside job and Rougned Odor still punched the shit…

Let’s talk about pets. They are made for cuddling. They nuzzle and purr and wiggle. They show their cute little bellies, asking for scratches. When we’re blue, they bring comfort. When they act like silly imbeciles, we make videos of them and share their antics with strangers on the internet. Pets give us something to…

For all the fathers and mothers out there, when Girl Scout Cookie season rolls around, your first and foremost emotion should be relief. It could be worse: You could be dealing with a Boy Scout instead. Those poor saps have to sell popcorn. It’s clearly an inferior product. Everyone loves cookies!

I bet you know some bad kids. Not your kids. Your kids are lovely, imaginative, super-athletic, and smart as a whip. I’m talking about your step-sister’s kids and your boss’s kids and the kids on your son’s soccer team and those kids who always end up hurting someone at the neighborhood block parties. Screw those…

I’m a child of a broken home. Before they split, my broke-ass parents had a couple nickels to rub together; afterward, a lonesome nickel did little to fill up the pantry in my dad’s house, and he had just enough ignorant confidence in the kitchen to get himself into trouble. The dishes he created were sometimes…